Comments on: Why Newton was agile and the Titanic was not http://sanderhoogendoorn.com/blog/?p=77 Imagination is more important than knowledge Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:16:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Pierre Boissonnet http://sanderhoogendoorn.com/blog/?p=77&cpage=1#comment-2965 Pierre Boissonnet Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:05:27 +0000 http://sanderhoogendoorn.org/blog/?p=77#comment-2965 I strongly disagree about agile being less efficient than waterfall. Jeff Sutherfland proved that Agile is more productive than waterfall: "Early pilot projects at Systematic showed productivity on Scrum teams almost twice that of traditional teams." (<a href="http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/Sutherland-ScrumCMMI6pages.pdf)." target="_blank">http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/Sutherland-ScrumC...</a> I hope Sander is right about Agile taking over big corporations! I strongly disagree about agile being less efficient than waterfall. Jeff Sutherfland proved that Agile is more productive than waterfall: "Early pilot projects at Systematic showed productivity on Scrum teams almost twice that of traditional teams." (http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/Sutherland-ScrumC...

I hope Sander is right about Agile taking over big corporations!

]]> By: Mendelt Siebenga http://sanderhoogendoorn.com/blog/?p=77&cpage=1#comment-880 Mendelt Siebenga Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:55:36 +0000 http://sanderhoogendoorn.org/blog/?p=77#comment-880 I'm not sure things will turn out this way. Agile is all about being more effective not more efficient. If you want efficiency you're better of using waterfall. When implemented the right way you can build loads of software using waterfal. The problem is that by the time you're finished it's usually not the right software anymore. Agile trades in some efficiency (usually not a lot) to be far more effective. Large organizations have a history of reacting to adverse conditions by improving efficiency. Not effectiveness. Usually efficiency is improved by strengthening centralized command and control structures and implementing more standardization. This will improve their situation for a while. They will be able to do what they are doing now for less money but this will degrade their ability to react to changes in the marketplace even more. I think the time has come for more smaller companies. Large corporations are single points of failure in our economy. This will eventually lead to more agility too but I'm afraid It's too late for big business. I’m not sure things will turn out this way.

Agile is all about being more effective not more efficient. If you want efficiency you’re better of using waterfall. When implemented the right way you can build loads of software using waterfal. The problem is that by the time you’re finished it’s usually not the right software anymore. Agile trades in some efficiency (usually not a lot) to be far more effective.

Large organizations have a history of reacting to adverse conditions by improving efficiency. Not effectiveness. Usually efficiency is improved by strengthening centralized command and control structures and implementing more standardization. This will improve their situation for a while. They will be able to do what they are doing now for less money but this will degrade their ability to react to changes in the marketplace even more.

I think the time has come for more smaller companies. Large corporations are single points of failure in our economy. This will eventually lead to more agility too but I’m afraid It’s too late for big business.

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